What is Sustainability?

'The avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance; the pursuit of global environmental sustainability; the ecological sustainability of the planet.

Quite simply we can use sustainable principles in building our homes by firstly looking to sourcing locally produced materials and products, ensuring we select quality and therefore durability over price, which also provides jobs and security for our local community.

Sustainable materials are selected on a life cycle basis, considering environmental impacts during procurement, sourcing sustainably-harvested materials and products with a low embodied energy. Looking at selecting timber from local (wherever possible) plantation forests, distance required to travel for manufacturing and then distance to supply to site, the product use and its long term durability and quality. We can investigate the use of prefabricated materials and structures to maximise speed and efficiency of construction, improve affordability and minimise waste.

We are very fortunate in Australia, with it's vast and diverse landscapes, it offers and provides ample resources to supply us with virtually any building raw material. Also with our high standards in quality we can purchase building products manufactured here in Australia with confidence in its quality, performance, durability and even it's accountability. As the world works towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it makes sense to be buying quality building materials produced locally, minimising transport costs. And by continually revising and updating government legislation, including the Building Code of Australia and Australian Standards, where we are required by law to build and supply high standard building materials and projects to meet our ever increasing quality and sustainable standards.

We consider passive solar and energy efficient design principles as an on going and easily sustainable building practice, where we can achieve long term cost effective and an environmentally beneficial outcome. Incorporating passive solar principles at the designstage is the most cost effective way of achieving sustainability and thermal performance.